To ask if you have a nicely decorated house...

[StarlightIntheNight]

How did you do it? Did you get an interior designer or did you sort it yourself? Im at loss on where to start for selecting sofa, art, rugs etc. We moved into a house a couple years ago and just brought our temporary ikea furniture (possibly considered permanent as we have had for 5 years! lol). The idea was to buy nicer furniture once we own a house and when kids are a bit older...well we own a house and kids are older...but I am at loss on how to pick things...so nothing gets done really and I am feeling frustrated. Interior designers seem very expensive...but I am afraid if we don't get one, our house will always be unfinished. I am looking for helpful tips here on where to start or if you have used an interior designer - Thank you!

I painted my lounge myself and hung feature wallpaper either side of the chimney breast. This one room looks very nice, if I do say so myself, and I make sure to keep this one room really tidy and lovely. I then have one 'nice' room to retreat to 😂

If your looking at buying new sofas then I would start there, choose a sofa/s that you love and then chose your colour decor around them. If you go for a neutral colour then you can add colour to the walls, this gives more choice then if you bought a brightly coloured sofa.

I've just used the John Lewis service. I already had a good idea of the sofa I wanted and the shop assistant pointed out that the service would be free if I then bought the sofa from them. They cost £250 for up to three rooms but you get this back if you spend £1500 within the next six months. Designer spent about 2 hours with us, I felt she very much took on board the style we liked and then we met in store for an hour to go through the designs she came up with. She wasn't at all pushy.

The lighting is as important as anything else imo. You can pick a lovely colour scheme and furniture that all goes together beautifully, but if you then get a giant chandelier-style light fitting and have the whole room lit too brightly, it can look very harsh, even clinical. I once saw an interior design tip that get a much warmer effect by having several smaller lamps in the corners of the room. It creates a mellow, expensive-looking glow apparently...

I think you have to find what style you are naturally drawn to. Minimalistic or organised clutter? Bright or dark colours?
Pastels or earthy? Warmth or fresh?

I like warmth and earthy and that scheme features a lot throughout my home. Adding a rug and an ottoman/pouffe to my living room as made a huge difference. Add some throws, cushions and candles and it's me to a tee.

I love feature walls and have them in every room. Once I've decided on a feature wall I go from there on how to accessorise it.

Have you been to other people's homes that you've liked? What did you like about them?

Great question OP!
I'm struggling with exactly this at the moment. We'll have been in our house 3 years in April and I get frustrated with the lack of progress. I'm gradually moving towards certain colours and shades but I don't seem to have any 'vision'. I just want to make it feel more like ours as opposed to the previous owners.

I'm interested to read what the pp's have said...

I love 2nd hand furniture, it's generally much better made than the mdern stuff and has more character. You can get the sofa first as has bee said then use your colour scheme for the cushions and rugs (you can get amazing 2nd hand indian or persian rugs) we have built our colour schemes around the rugs.

We have cats so we bought a leather sofa new it is dark and then we add bright reds in winter and creams in summer. It blends with the rugs which withstand hard treatment from the cats because they are good quality 2nd hand.

I’m half way there at the moment through a big project and Instagram has been the best thing for me. I follow about 60 or 70 accounts for inspiration.

We have always paid people to do ours. We get the stuff and tell them what to do/how to do it, and they do it. I absolutely LOATHE painting and decorating, and so does DH. We prefer to spend our time doing stuff we enjoy doing.

Some people seem to enjoy it, and I know a few people who seem to spend every weekend decorating their house, and they change decor once or twice a year! Not for me. (Or DH!) We enjoy nature, and gardening, and landscaping, and travel, and cycling, and swimming, and art, and writing...

But painting and decorating our house? No way. Someone else can do that! People outsource other stuff, like cleaning and ironing and gardening, and they get people to bake their cakes and so on. I don't see the difference with getting people to do your decorating. That's what professional painters and decorators are there for!

We obviously put our own curtains, blinds, rugs, candles, ornaments, sculptures. and lamps and so on around the house. But wallpapering and painting? Nope. That's someone else's job! It's waaaaay too boring and tedious for us.

And Houzz. Advice, photos and help from professionals. Great website.

Ours has just kind of evolved.

I like a lighter, more airy look than the dark walls and clutter that’s currently fashionable. I also hate anything grey or shiny.

We have lots of family items around and lots of lovely objects from our travels. Colour is really important too.

In the past I’ve taken a gorgeous piece of artwork or a piece of fabric and pulled the room colours out of that, kind of getting the benefit of the artist or designer’s eye.

Go to a local upholsterer/sofa maker. They will give you some ideas on what will fit in your room/suit your needs, and help with fabric choices, then choose your decor around it.

And look on the major fabric house websites for inspiration. They spend millions getting a "look" down to a fine art. www.stylelibrary.com is a good one as they have about 6 brands under their umbrella, and www.romo.com. www.linwoodfabric.com. And www.ianmankin.com is all made in the UK.

In the trade if you didn't guess

I wouldn't say our house was perfect but I thought I'd chip in.....

As others have said Pintrest is brilliant for pulling ideas together. I think of a colour I love or an idea like "winter ski lodge" or something similar to begin with. I also search for colour pallets on Pintrest and pick 2 or 3 colours for each room.

I personally stick to neutral furniture and walls and make a room up with curtains other soft furnishings and accessories - makes it easier to change the entire room if you ever fancy a change or decide you hate it. I would do a feature wall to add the colour into the room - easy to repaint or re-wallpaper just 1 wall.

The thing I have always found makes a room look more "finished" is bit green plants or really good artificial flower arrangements.

Yes. Built a house then decorated it....first time experience. I'm a garden designer but know little about interiors. What I did wwas make a mood board. On the mood board I stuck on colours, textures, bits of material and all manner of things that I'd seen out and about and I liked. Once I'd got this clear in my mind and the overall 'look' that I was heading towards, it was plain sailing. The house has been finished for 2 years and I still love it. Most people that come love it too. I will find a pic...by the way, didn't use any professional design services due to budget.

We selected our sofa. No compromises there. And everything is "built" around that. Since it's a contemporary style, beige leather one it should have been easy.
Moved a year ago, bought the sofa and some ikea pieces. FFW to now: same pieces :)
We actually have an idea of what we want, just can't afford it (ever, probably... like a 75k artwork coffee table and such).

Some great advice here. Agree with starting with a colour. Each room should have one or two statement pieces and the rest to complement or balance it out. I also think that less clutter looks classier - everything should have a place or purpose for being displayed. Pinterest is great for ideas.

chasingmytail, presumably they are only using items available in John Lewis?

An independent designer will be free to use products from all a whole range of suppliers.

Have a look on Pinterest and Instagram from things you like. Colours (light? Dark? Pastels? Bright? Jewel tones?) Pattern or plain? Textures? Carpet? Rugs? Hard floors? Curtains, blinds or shutters?

If you are truly at a loss as to what you want then perhaps an interior designer is worth having. Some are very set on their own ‘signature’ style but most good ones will work with you and design a scheme within your budget that suits how you live, what you want from the room and what you like. They’ll also incorporate existing favourite or heirloom pieces in, if you want them to. It’s your home. You don’t want to live in someone else’s vision, the designer is there to help you realise a collaborative vision, one that feels like home to you.

I love interiors. My own home has developed over the years, inspired by places we’ve been (hotels, museums, galleries, bars, shops, friends’ houses you name it!), magazines, tv show sets, Pinterest, Instagram. I collect paintings and so that’s just developed over time. I don’t buy pictures or prints to ‘fit’ my decor, they are quite an eclectic mix and they tend to work. Sometimes I shuffle them around or reframe so they work better in a scheme.

Thinking about sofas OP, the most important thing is that it is actually comfortable to sit on, everything else is secondary. I have had my fill of sofas that look great but send your legs to sleep after 10 minutes.
Make sure you try them out in person.
I would second what tinklylittlelaugh says about using one thing to pull your colours together. Get the things you like too, not because some random designer says this or that is a must have. Be individual.

For big things like sofas and dining table/chairs, buy what's practical as you'll use them every day. For us, that's two big tan leather laura ashley sofas and an oak table and chunky chairs that have lasted years. We stripped the wooden floors so they are timeless too. Everything else fits in round them and we can change wallpaper and rugs for colour when needed.
But I'd never buy a big purchase in fashion colour - this year's 'living coral' sofa will be reduced before you know it.

Doing a scaled floor plan min 1:50 or 1:20/25 is really essential as it enables you to ensure that you've got sufficient access points in and around some of your key furniture pieces. I did it on the laptop and added scaled in squares etc for sofas, rugs etc. If you get down to that level you can really determine what you are going to keep and show off and anything that perhaps won't work any longer.

I agree about pictures/prints/photos. When we moved, we laid all our framed prints, art, photos, etc out in one room and then grouped them into themes. Then allocated a group to a specific room.

Unless you get pleasure out of changing light bulbs (I don't) ...think hard about having lights that have a great impact but are relatively simple and straightforward to change the bulb....and that the bulb is widely available on the market.
One of the best things we put in were clear acrylic corner protectors in high traffic / wall rub areas ...like by the front door. It stops wall paper getting scuffed and torn...I think they're brilliant and save redecorating expensive wall paper.

Pick one thing you love and build the room around that

If you love a hot pink sofa then that is your feature and you should make sure the other colours go with that

Or if you like modern then base the room around that

Use Pinterest etc to save all the photos of rooms you like

It may be an idea to get someone in for an hour or two to help you pull your ideas together - sort of I love the sofa but you really need x & y and then that will make the room look finished

Mine isn't that nicely decorated in my opinion, more I've seen ideas in Homes and Garden etc and have tried to get them into the house. I tend to have a certain idea what I like and ignore trends. I may, however create a certain area in e.g. the living room based on a new tea service. Certain high scale things have gone completely out of the window since having a young child as I got fed up with 'don't touch' and worrying if they'd break a precious vase, but I do put them in cabinets or on high shelves.

I don't do certain colours like Farrow and Ball grey sludge or whatever it's called as I find them icky...

Pinterest bores me.

Decormad38 - you'd love my SIL, she used to manage one of the main William Morris galleries. She doesn't really reflect that in her flat though.

It helps that for a few years I worked with architects and interior designers so if I'm really stuck for décor ideas I can ask them friend to friend or I can just pay them (usually mates rates) for their advice.